When you decide to train a skill, you may have one area in mind: a favourite patch of trees, perhaps, or a specific altar to craft your runes. Well, this month's first update, Distractions and Diversions, will threaten to turn that way of thinking on its head. You see, Distractions and Diversions will offer new ways of training your skills, but you'll rarely know when (or where) they'll turn up next...

Take Penguin Hide and Seek, for example. You may be walking around RuneScape, summoning yaks and thieving paladins, when something catches your eye. Is that a flash of beak in that nearby bush? Does that toadstool have flippers? You won't be going loopy - the penguins of the north are spying on us humans, and Larry will want you to spot them first. He'll be willing to pay well for a penguin sighting and will even cash in your Penguin Points for experience in any skill.

It would be hard to get more bizarre than penguins in mushroom costumes, but Distractions and Diversions has an ace up its sleeve. That ace will be Balthazar Beauregard's Big Top Bonanza, a travelling circus that encourages the audience to get up and join the action. Wow the crowds with a magic trick, acrobatic feat and a well-placed throwing knife and you'll gain experience or even an outfit to clown about in.

The last Distraction and Diversion will come in the form of a Shooting Star. Instead of making a wish, you'll need to rush to the crash site and mine its thick outer layers. Break through them on your own or with others and you'll uncover a curious-looking star sprite, the magical inhabitant of shooting stars. As a reward, it might even help you out with some gold, objects and the ability to temporarily mine quicker.

Not all of our updates arrive and depart as unpredictably as Distractions and Diversions; the following release, the Clan Wars Update, is a far more predictable (but welcome) addition to this Behind the Scenes. It'll bring a swathe of new options for creating a clan war that suits you. What options will be available? Time for a list!

* Free-for-all battles * The optional ability to run back into battle after death * Combat style * New obstacle choices * Single-way areas * Time limits * Kills required for a victory * Keep/Lose items on death (without the ability for other players to pick them up) * New arenas

The option we're most stoked about is free-for-all battles, where anyone will be able to run in and start battling immediately. It won't matter if you're in a clan or not; you'll be teleported to a vast PvP area where you can have a large scrap with anyone else you meet in there.

'A large scrap' is exactly what will be offered in Summer's End. In this dramatic conclusion to Spirit of Summer, you'll be confronted by the beast who has been sapping the family's souls. Unfortunately, yours is particularly tasty, so you'll need swift feet, hard skin and help from some spirited friends if you're going to survive. The quest will be particularly taxing for those who are not prepared, but you'd expect that from a skill-based battle with one of RuneScape's hardest-hitting monsters, right? Don't worry: the rewards and the family's heartwarming smiles will definitely be worth it.

There will be few smiles in our last thriller update, Defender of Varrock. Deep in the Wilderness, braindead hordes will form into ranks, in a manner that the evil dead rarely do. Such an occurrence will need to be investigated, of course, and the identities of those behind it will have to be revealed. The question is, can you turn the zombie tide before Varrock becomes a shambling land of the dead? Reading the Legend of Arrav lores and histories may well help you out in this particular quest...

It's not all war, zombies and soul-eating this month: there are laughs to be had in the Postbag from the Hedge, with some pictures that are far more handsome than a zombie's ugly mug in our Players' Gallery and wallpaper release.

When levelling skills or trekking around RuneScape, you might want to keep an eye out for some unusual goings on. This is because the Distractions and Diversions (a new type of game feature in RuneScape) are cropping up randomly, offering you some interesting experiences. We think you'll enjoy being distracted by these new ways to train, as they can be fun and useful...

Balthazar Beauregard's Big Top Bonanza:

The circus offers more than entertainment: it gives you the chance to be a star. Perform on the tightrope and show off your Agility, test your aim at the Ranged event, or blow things up in the Magic performance! Every week you'll get the chance to show your stuff and earn great rewards in the process.How to enter the circus:

Speak to the Ticket Vendor, who moves randomly between twelve towns in RuneScape. Keep a note of where it is!

Requirements to play in the circus:

Members onlyAccess to:

Experience and costumes for your performances.

Penguin Hide and Seek:

What's black, white and covered in leaves? A penguin pretending to be a bush! It may sound crazy, but it's true. Ten penguins have gone incognito and infiltrated the lands of RuneScape. Your mission, should you choose to accept it (and who wouldn't?), is to track down these mischievous birds and report them to Larry in the Ardougne Zoo. He'll reward you handsomely with XP or gold coins; so, the more penguins you find, the greater your reward.

You'll need to keep your eyes peeled - the ten penguins will change location every seven days and have a tendency to wander about the place. Keep finding them to collect your reward.Where to start Penguin Hide and Seek:

Speak to Larry in Ardougne ZooThen start searching RuneScape for the dastardly birds

Requirements to play Penguin Hide and Seek:

Members onlyAccess to:

Rewards every seven days: gold coins or XP!

Shooting Star:

Stars are falling from the sky, ripe with rewards! Mine the meteorite and you'll get up to 200 pieces of stardust. Manage to get to the middle of the star and you'll meet the star sprite, who will reward you according to the amount of stardust you have mined.

Watch out, though: there's a two hour gap between shooting stars, so you should take advantage of the stars when you see them. Get a better idea of when (and where) they'll fall by using your player-owned house telescope, but they'll still be hard to find. The stars are big and slow to mine through, so they're best mined by several people at once. Call on your friends to make your way to the middle with slightly more ease...Where to find Shooting Star:

Stars can land all over the place! Use your player-owned house telescopes to narrow down the landing location of the next star.

Requirements to play Shooting Star:

Members onlyDifferent layers require different Mining level requirements.Outer layers are tougher to mine. Stars will start off at a random size.Access to:

Rewards from the star sprite include runes, coins, gold ore and a temporary bonus to your Mining, which will give you more ore from the rocks that you mine.Bonus Mining XP for the first person to discover a star.You can be rewarded by a sprite up to once each day.

In other news...

Many items that are frequently purchased on the Grand Exchange have had their purchase limits increased so you can buy more of them at once. These include bows, poisoned darts, several dragonhide items, poh teleport tablets, pyre logs, bones, fruit and more!

Certain searches in the in-game world map, like "fishing guild", wouldn't yield any results. I'm sure you're all angling to hear that the Fishing Guild is still in the same plaice, so you should sea that this problem has been e-ray-sed!

Two worlds (60 and 61) have been designated as suggested 'Great Orb Project' worlds. While we've noticed a fair amount of activity on worlds such as 1, 2, 6 and 9, these are the main trading worlds and are often near capacity or full. Therefore, we have selected 60 and 61 so that you'll be able to log in straight away and join others who are playing this minigame.

October is traditionally a month of scary surprises and toothache. This month will be no different when it comes to our Hallowe’en content, with a quest AND holiday event both to be available on the free servers. For scary surprises: how about entire worlds where you can PK and hunt other players to your heart’s content? That’s right, PvP worlds are coming! But first, a few words about how we’re going to update RuneScape in the future.

During the last six months we’ve been reading through the forums, talking to you in-game and running polls on the sorts of updates you really want. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that it’s the bigger, chunkier updates that really get you excited, those like the God Wars Dungeon or a new skill. These are the sorts of updates we found that you wanted to play. Updates that you want to go back to time and time again.

So, starting from this month, we’re changing the way we release content. From now on you’ll see one massive “headline update” (such as a Recipe for Disaster or a Castle Wars) every month. On top of that, there will still be a secondary release, much more like the size of update you’re used to right now. We’re also still committed to making sure that no two weeks pass without something new.

Basically, from now on our releases will be like this:

* Four week months will have two updates: one big headline release and a secondary one. * Five week months will have three updates: one big headline release and two secondary ones.

So, on to this month’s updates...

PvP Worlds

Ever found yourself wanting to say, “Look, it’s my tree. If you don’t stop chopping it...I’ll chop you!” Sounds cool, right? Yeah, but where could you do it? And when? The answers are PvP worlds and October!

From log-in, those that are interested in PvP content will be able to join in on special PvP worlds. The danger on these worlds will be very clear from the first messages you see, ensuring that players never log onto these worlds by mistake. After all, we don’t want players accidentally getting involved with PKing (player killing) if they don’t want to. Normal, non-PvP worlds will still act just as they do now, so don’t worry if bashing others isn’t really your thing.

Those that want to get involved will find a number of differences to the usual set-up on PvP worlds. Firstly, you’ll be able to fight people pretty much anywhere, so long as their Combat level is similar to yours (within a certain range of levels). This means that almost everywhere is dangerous. Some places, like banks and respawn points, will be deemed “safe” and no combat will be able to occur there, and some of the minigames will be disabled (you won’t be able to PK team mates while playing Castle Wars, for example) but many will still be active. Other places, like Falador, Varrock and the entirety of the Wilderness, will be considered “hot spots” where the danger will be even greater and a higher concentration of opponents.

Now, onto the money side of things. Many of you will be aware of the RWT (real-world trading of RuneScape gold for money) reasons we changed the old Wilderness. We certainly can’t just bring that threat back to RuneScape, so we have devised a system that rewards players based on a variety of factors. This means that things such as risk, level of foe and location will help to calculate rewards. Drops will be determined by a combination of drop tables and some of the gear that your opponent drops. We will go into more depth about this on the day of release.

Hallowe'en

As well as changing things around with the headline updates, we also decided to change the way we do things with our holiday events. We wanted to make the most of the little bits of fun we have every year, and give the free-to-play game a taste of the content we release in the members’ world. This year, we will be releasing a Hallowe’en-themed quest as well as the traditional holiday event. This quest will be available to our free players for the two weeks around Hallowe’en, along with the holiday event itself, and members will be able to play the quest at any time (the normal holiday event will disappear after two weeks as usual). What’s it about? Well, you’ll have to wait and see, but expect some funky decorations to start appearing.

Spooky player letters and artwork will also await those strong of stomach...so be prepared.

Updates being released after October

In case that little lot isn’t enough for you, let’s take a few moments to talk about the headline content we’re releasing in the months after October:

Stealing Creation

Not long to wait now for this crazy combination for skillers and PKers. Can you and your team work together capturing resources and equipping your warriors? Will you avoid the multitude of threats bearing down on your safe haven? Will you try to make your own way to the higher level gear, or will you just PK and destroy your opponents’ hard work? Will you be able to keep the enemy at bay while stealing creation?

Mobilising Armies

Ever fancied assaulting a castle with your very own army? You will be able to hire a mercenary force to battle against three other players, complete set objectives and earn rewards. Mobilising Armies will be a fast paced tactical minigame allowing you to control your very own RuneScape army with troops made up of humans and other races. There will also be some special effects including dive bombing gnomes and giant catapults. Will you be up to the challenge?

_________________When shadow comes, to claim our souls,Some must rise, the light of old,Names in stone, spirits of legend,Deeds unknown, yet never forgotten,These are the Duranin!Of honor within, and of fear witoutRemmember them... When in hope you doubt.